Thursday, January 3, 2008

Don't Worry, Our Gerbil Bowl is Full

Stryker is a very conscientious pet owner. At one point, he was the proud possessor of 37 gerbils. Did you know that a gerbil can conceive again within five minutes of giving birth?

Pet stores do not accept returns on the male, either.

Last year Stryker wrote this poem as a school assignment. I contemplate it from time to time, as both a piece of art and as a Rorschach test. Regarding the latter, this child's glass is always half empty.

Death

In the
Late, Late, Late
Evening
A boy leans
Over his gerbil cage
Knowing he should
Have fed them
Much, Much, Much
Earlier
Silently Grieving
Over poor Bobby

The other one
Will now be
All alone With
No one to
Play with

The boy does
Not know
What to do
He leaves the cage

The bowl still empty

9 comments:

Type (little) a aka Michele said...

Poor lady gerbil. She gets not even 5 minutes rest.......

Adorable poem.

Mrs. G. said...

This kid knows how to put some words together. I wonder where he gets his talent. Hmmmm.

I have never recovered from the thrill of seeing my mother gerbil give birth to six babies and then watching the father proceed to eat them. Nature, she's a bitch.

Minnesota Matron said...

oh my, Mrs. G. That shakes the matronly socks. Ugh! And one does like to think that these little apples are just plop, plop, plopping at my feet :-)

Nora said...

I. Love. This. Poem.

Karen said...

Oh wow--how old is this child?

Minnesota Matron said...

Stryker wrote this when he was nine. He's now 11. What I'm writing here is absolutely not meant to toot one's own horn, but his teacher (Montessori, so he's been with Stryker for three years now) told us that Stryker is perhaps the brightest kid he's had in his thirty years of teaching. Indeed, this teacher is writing a memoir of teaching and has a chapter on Stryker as one of his challenges!! Now imagine living with this child. The sad thing is that I can't say he's a happy person. His poem also reflects his rather fatalistic sensibilities. He says he's a realist in a family of optimists. True.

bananas62 said...

I can honestly say, I am very glad Im not a gerbil... 5 minutes later.. woops there ya are pregnant again! GADS!!!
I do love the poem!!! Great way to express many feelings.!!!

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